Reckoning
by Lady Frost1
Summary: In anticipation of RE4, I got curious about what Leon's been doing for 6 years. I decided to dig into my imagination and find out.
1. Default Chapter

So since my tiny brain seems to stall a little bit on the other story, I couldn't shake the idea that blossomed while sitting in my computer chair staring at the screen and picturing any number of random violent images. In other words, this lovely piece of work. Depending on the response, I'll keep it going.

But once again, it all depends on who likes, who hates it, and who just plain takes the time to read it. grin

ONE: A RECKONING-

Written in blood on the wall of FETISH:

For those who are worthy, know the light. We are the purpose, both holy and divine.

There is no god, he is a myth created by tiny minds and unstructured reasoning. There is only science, there is only THE WAY. Our path is the gun, our priests the bullet, our word the blood. We offer redemption, we offer the truth.

For those who are guilty, seek protection. We are the judge, the jury, and the executioner.

There is no hiding place for those who use science to contaminate. We will cleanse the dirty and build a bridge for the righteous to a new world. Know the truth, the Umbrella Corporation will fall. Their genetic research is a disgrace. We will annihilate them.

We use the blood of your people to purify the masses.

For those who will read this, fear not. For the reckoning is coming.

….

The sun turned the world into a glittering mammoth of diamond beauty. The snow had spread its loving white embrace upon the earth, coating it in frozen kisses, suspending it on a precarious bridge between death and rebirth.

Not a whisper of wind, not a tremble of movement, save for the tinkle of ice freed from the branches of trees in a temporary hibernation and branches long since stripped of any sign of life.

And the occasional puff of nearly smoky breath from two sets of inert lungs.

They held each other by the barrel of a gun. Two men locked in final moments of mortal combat.

Each bled, though the moment the red met the frozen breath of the air, it crystallized, preserved on flesh or clothing like smears of garnet.

One with his body turned just a little to one side, arm extended, the other wrapped over his battered ribs. He held a Braztech R351, a .38 special double action revolver. Though he was afraid, terribly afraid, that he'd already fired his last shot.

He was well over six feet, dark hair cut close to his square jawed face in a crew cut. He wore torn and scuffed combat fatigues, the shades of green somehow bright and clear against the encompassing whiteness of the world.

His name was Edward Reinhold, a bounty hunter, the best in his field. And he was a desperate man.

The other stood less then four feet away in the classic shooters stance, a tea cup grip that didn't waver, didn't tremble though both arms of his brown leather jacket were ripped, slashed by a crafty hand and a sharp blade. Blood stained the snow at his feet from a ravaged leg, from the savaged end of his calve.

But he held the SIGARMS 1911 .45 calibur semi-automatic on his opponent without a flicker of weakness.

He was the shorter of the two, just under six feet, the soft auburn of his hair skimming the bridge of a nose on a classically handsome face. Though the chin was smeared with blood, the cheek split and sporting a frozen red slash. Of the two, he was built slimmer, but more muscular, strong through the arms and shoulders, narrow of waist, long of leg.

His name was Leon Scott Kennedy, a government assassin, the man they called in when they wanted it done quickly, quietly, and without a trace. And he never left a job unfinished.

He'd tracked Reinhold for over a month, always a step behind, always a city short.

Until this morning.

When he'd finally cornered him at the edge of the world.

A chase across a frozen wasteland. On foot, two men, both hunters, both trained and versatile in the art of evasion, of tracking, of elimination.

They'd clashed. They'd fought. They'd bled.

And each knew that one of them wouldn't leave this dying corner of the world alive.

A shift of movement, the puff of breath, a trickle of sweat frozen immediately the moment it was born.

"Why don't you just give up?"

"Why don't you?"

Touche'.

Reinhold shifted his gaze, watched a clump of snow give with a breaking sigh and tumble to join its brethren.

"You're not good enough to stop me. "

"And yet here I am." Kennedy let the hammer fall on the gun, unnecessary on a semi-automatic, but always good for dramatic effect.

"On three then." Reinhold spit blood, watched it tumbled and freeze the moment it hit snow. "One, two--" His gun went off first, as he didn't see himself as a man of honor under any means.

It was echoed loudly by the other man's.

Blood spilled scarlet and thick on the snow.

Kennedy collapsed to his knees, cradling his shoulder. The other man remained on his feet, blood pumping furiously from the hole in his stomach.

His glazed eyes were frantic. "I won't let you take me. Dead in this wasteland is better then in their hands."

Kennedy had a moment to try to turn and his knees were already frozen to the ground, trapping him.

He couldn't stop the stock of the gun that came for his head. His arm came up to block, too slow, joints creaking in protest.

It glanced off the side of his temple and spilled him with a burst of blood to the snow on his face.

He tried to roll, tried to move but only his gloved hand did, scraping at snow. His vision colored, slid into ribbons.

"You're just not good enough."

The world clicked off like someone had thrown a switch, immersing him in darkness stained red with blood.


	2. Bodyguard

****

Well here we go on the first chapter. We discover, of course, what happens to Mr. Kennedy when he fails his assignment. Look out, she's a meanie. Hehehe.

BODYGUARD

If there was one thing you could say about Fetish, it was that it was always bumping.

Never did there seem to be a time when something wasn't happening.

Tonight, for instance, was Amateur Night.

Wannabe exotic dancers swung their leather clad, silk clad, paint clad bodies around silver and gold poles to the ecstatic cheering of the crowd. Whistles, propositions, lewd suggestions in at least three different languages rose around the stage like birds in flight.

Strobe lights flickered over their half naked forms, showing off tattoos, bathing skin in gyrating shades of pink, blue, purple and yellow.

It was a maelstrom of magic, a crazed orgy of flesh and furious bodies, pressing, pushing, pulling and swirling around each other in a nearly maddened sense of celebration.

"Sydney, oh my GOD, you soooo have to come meet this guy. He's so HOT."

The voice yelling above the continuous pound of bass and deafening music was Arina Bertocelli. Life time best friend, current roommate, impossible man eater.

Sydney Delacroix met the excited eyes of her best friend in the world, and couldn't quite bring up the enthusiasm to dance with her.

Arina, undeterred, swung their arms together. Arina was little, barely over five foot, gifted with a perfect figure. Slim hips, tiny waist, perky breasts, all topped by a mane of curly blonde hair and a perfect pixie face with shining blue eyes.

The face in question was currently made up with charcoal eyeliner, three layers of mascara, and temporary tattoos at the corner of each eye. Her lips, bowed into a happy smile, were painted a shocking red.

Sydney on the other hand, nearly towered over her. At 5"8, she was tall for a woman, and suffered the indignities of having an hour glass figure. Which meant she was busty, nearly too much for her own liking, and her slim waist tapered into, what she liked to call her "hips from hell", though someone else had once referred to them as child bearing hips.

Her hair, a near black-brown and streaked with red, was cut short in the back, spiked just a little, while the front trailed in two perfect pieces down the sides of what she liked to think of as her only decent feature. Her face.

It was comprised of a mix of features that she liked to think gave her character.

Big brown eyes, the color of good topaz, framed by dusky lashes that curled without the help of cosmetics, a blade of a nose, fine and straight and maybe a shade too thin but still not too bad. And lips that bordered on being plump. Her cheekbones were high and sharp, hollowing the cheeks beneath them.

She wouldn't say it was a pretty face, but she'd admit it could be striking.

It was currently, by Arina's demands, graced with sparkles and dotted with tiny little fake jewels. One at each corner of her eye, one on each cheek and the bridge of her nose. Against the jewels, you almost didn't notice the tiny silver stud in her nostril. The shiny gold sparkles all over her creamy white skin winked like stars in the flashing lights.

"Honey, you really don't think I care about some other stupid college frat boy with too much of his Daddy's money and too little brains, do you?."

Arina giggled, swirling in a circle.

Sydney knew she was hopped on something.

Since it was Friday night, college night at Fetish, she was betting it was X.

"He has a beamer."

"Well then I should marry him right away." Sydney couldn't stop herself from snorting.

Arina kissed her on the mouth. "You're missing out, Syd."

"I'm sure I am. Go bag him for me, k honey?"

Arina nodded, dancing away into the crush of seemingly sex starved youth.

Sydney made her way to the edge of the dance floor and, in a rare bit of luck, only got groped three times before she exited up the steel steps to the landing.

The leather pants, another of Arina's demands, squeaked a little as she moved, making for the bar.

If she didn't get a vodka tonic, she was positively going to die.

Really, it was the only way to stomach these idiots.

The red silk spaghetti string tank top swished nicely against her stomach as she leaned on the bar, between a man who looked passed out dead and a woman obviously trying too hard to get a date.

Sydney wanted to tell her, all five feet of desperate in pink lycra, to stop wasting her time on men and do something good for her, like get a dog.

But she held her tongue.

The bar tender smiled happily. "Hey Syd, what will it be?"

It was Gary….something or another. From her Women's Studies course.

"Hey Gary. Let me get a vodka tonic."

"Sure thing."

Sydney smiled politely and turned away quickly before he got the wrong idea.

Gary was nice. Sure he was. He was also cute…in a WASP kind of way. Blonde and blue eyed and the son of a senator, or something.

In fact, most of the kids on campus were the son or daughter of somebody rich and powerful.

She herself, in fact, was the grand daughter of one of the big wig's for the Umbrella Corporation. The largest pharmaceutical company in the world.

She didn't have any contact with her grandfather. Hadn't for years.

But she wasn't unaware of the fact that he'd likely pulled strings to get her into Harvard.

With as low as her GPA was, with her lack of extra curricular activities on her college transcript, without her grandfather, she'd have ended up in community college where she belonged.

But no, couldn't have that. Not for the grand daughter of Desmond Delacroix.

She was destined to do great things, according to the philandering old fart. She just needed the right stepping stones.

So here she was, attending an Ivy League university, surrounded by infantile, spoiled, upper class shits with more time and money then god, in her third year of law school and wishing, not for the first time, that she'd been born anyone else on earth.

It wasn't that she was ungrateful.

She wasn't _that_ kind of rich girl. The kind that had everything and still found something to bitch about.

Oh no, she was simply the girl that wanted to live her own life and was tired, so tired, of falling in where her parents, and her grandfather, wanted her to.

She picked up the tonic and brought it to her lips.

She'd taken one small drink when a voice said, "Are you tired?"

Oh no, he wasn't. He really wasn't.

She glanced at his face. Young, dark haired in a hacked up version of a bowl cut, black eye liner, pierced lips. And a look on his face that said, oh yes he was.

"Because you've been running through my mind all day."

Sydney stood very still for a moment, meeting those flashing, eager, lusty eyes, hazed by something a lot stronger then X.

"Nice tie." She kept her voice neutral, looking at the spiked collar around his throat and the dangling silver spiked flail attached to it.

"Thanks baby. You wanna choke me with it?"

She did want to choke alright. On her drink.

Sydney smiled politely. "You know, I left my dominatrix gear at home. But maybe next time, Sparky."

His face said he wasn't deterred. In fact, he had some balls, because he leaned closer to her, put his lips by her ear. "That's okay baby. I got mine in the car. We can share. First you do me, then I…" He did NOT just lick her ear. "…do you."

Sydney barely contained her laugh. She put her hand in his thin chest and pushed, just enough to show she wasn't some little fluttering female and was quite capable of kicking his ass. "Thanks. But no thanks."

Still not deterred, in fact, only more determined and obviously turned on by her resistance, which she just knew he thought was a game, he caught her hand. And slid it toward his mouth.

Okay, if he suckled her finger, she was going to chop off his dick and feed it to him on the end of her stiletto boot.

She pulled back, he pulled forward. And she was just surprised enough by the strength in that puny frame, that she stumbled and ended up clasped to his chest.

"Why hello there baby."

Sydney wanted to vomit. He smelled like a meth lab mixed with paint thinner.

She raised her other hand and he caught it, held it away with a shake of his head, clucking his tongue. "Not in here baby. Let's take it outside. Then you can tell me what a bad boy I've been."

UGH. If he used anymore shop worn, pathetic, disgusting lines, she was really going to puke all over him.

"Let's get something straight, ace, "She tried to pull away and he was stronger then he looked, which was really starting to make her mad. "I'm…not…interested."

Metal face tugged her back into him, chuckling at her efforts to twist free. He put his lips against her ear. "I can see your nipples, gorgeous. And they look mighty interested."

Yep, she was definitely going to puke.

She struggled a little harder. "I said let go shit face."

"Will you spank me if I don't?"

Okay, now she was just pissed.

Sydney jerked hard on her arms and felt the first twitch of panic when it only had him gripping her harder.

She was going to have to knee him in the crotch. Which she hated doing, but sometimes, yes, it was necessary.

His hand slipped down her back and landed on her ass.

She saw red in a haze of fury.

"Why you little son of a---"

It was all she got out before she was quite simply pulled free and pushed to one side.

She opened her mouth to say something to the man who'd so rudely moved her when her would be attacker was abruptly…well…dispatched.

A single perfectly aimed foot to the stomach, planted in a very nicely executed back kick, followed by a beautiful knee to the face, sent the rapist in training onto his back like discarded toy.

People scattered like disturbed pigeons in the park.

Sydney glanced over from the unconscious metal face, wrestling with a moment of strangely numbing shock, and found herself having to look up.

Because he was…well he was tall.

And really out of place in the night club.

He didn't wear any kind of raver gear, not a single glow stick, twinkling jewel, shiny spread of sparkles. No leather, no paint, no funky streaks of color in hair, not even a single suggestion of a piercing or a tattoo on his face.

The face…well…it didn't need anything.

Because it was, in a word, arresting.

In fact, if she hadn't been so shocked by his quick and easy dispatching of metal face, she would have noticed it sooner.

He was almost impossibly handsome.

A perfect blend of square jaw, high clear forehead, strong cheekbones, nicely arched brows over eyes that might have been blue, if they hadn't been reflecting different shades of color from the flashing lights.

If he had one imperfect feature, it was that his nose was maybe, just a little big.

But again, that could have been a trick of light. And again, it didn't detract a single thing from that face. In fact, it made him look….a little more human.

Hair that walked the line between red, brown, and blonde fell soft and loose, longer in the front, sweeping in an angled line from the middle of his ear down toward the half point of his cheek. It currently fell over one eye, giving him, dear god, a bedroom eyed look.

In the next of series of endless surprises of the night, she realized if she hadn't been so distracted by the face, she'd have noticed the body sooner.

It was…okay, surely she was dreaming.

Because men like this just weren't real.

It was some cosmic joke on her part. It had to be.

She took one look at his outfit. Black cargo pants, black shirt, black jacket, and wanted to ask him if he was FBI. Because if he was anymore monochrome, that's what he'd be.

In the black, it was hard to tell if he was muscled or just large. He was certainly wide through the shoulders and chest, not steroid, body builder big, but still bigger then any other guy on the landing….and maybe the campus.

Height wise, she wanted to say he was maybe a little over six feet.

But a lot of that was leg and torso. Christ, the guy was just…just…

He turned, and that hair slid farther over one eye as he looked at her. "Are you okay?"

Okay so the voice sealed the package.

It was east coast, definitely, clear and precise and crisp around the edges.

Three words and she knew the guy came from money.

You didn't get a tone like that from working at some dead end job to just scrape by in life. That voice came from growing up with everything.

Her brain came back in stages.

"Yeah." And then came roaring back with anger. "Yeah I am. No thanks to you."

There was a flash of surprise on that face.

"Yeah, thanks a lot He-Man, but I didn't need a white knight."

The surprise filtered out as quickly as it came.

Which told her two things, if he was FBI, he was a rookie. Because he obviously didn't know that the FBI never showed emotion. It was debatable whether or not they even had them. In fact, she thought it was a rule somewhere that said they were all clones. Or maybe robots

The second was that he was offended.

Well, it wasn't like she cared.

"Good work there, ace. Takes a lot to drop a one-hundred and twenty pound penis on legs."

She snorted rudely and started to move past him.

His hand, gloved, save for the exposed tips of his fingers, caught on her arm.

It had her guard going up immediately.

Surely he wasn't going to save her from one man only to step in and take his place.

"Whoa! Hands off, Romeo."

He let her go almost as quickly as he'd grabbed her.

"I'm sorry but I can't let you leave."

Okay, that was…weird.

"I don't remember asking your permission."

"You will from now on."

Oh ho!

That put her back up.

She swung around to face him, fuming. He was standing there quite calmly looking at her.

"Who the hell do you think you are buddy?!"

"I'm Special Agent Kennedy. And I've been assigned to protect you."


	3. 2: Over the River

****

HIGHWAY TO THE DANGER ZONE

Something about his tone told her he wasn't happy with that at ALL.

"_Protect me!?_ From what?"

His eyes scanned the multiple numbers of faces looking at them, the room around them, the man on the ground.

"I'm not at liberty to say."

Surely he was kidding.

"Listen, bub, I don't know what spy novel you think you've stepped out of. But you're obviously in need of some very serious help. So why don't you take your pretty face and your unstable mental state, and go get some prozac."

Another surprised flash in those eyes.

"That's right. I'm not falling for it." Sydney stepped closer to him, invading the hell out of his personal space, and he was just surprised enough to take a step back. "So do me a favor, prince charming, shop it somewhere else. Pretending to be James Bond, playing hero, it doesn't do it for me."

She pushed a finger into his chest, didn't let the thought that it was indeed muscle, trip up her thoughts for longer then a moment.

"Now if you'll excuse me, I got places to be."

She turned abruptly on her heel and pushed through the crowd to the dance floor.

Bodies swallowed her up the minute she stepped down like a sea of flesh and hungry sex.

When she caught sight of Arina, she grabbed her little arm and pulled her, tiny tube top and all to her side.

"Hey! I was dancing girl!"

Sydney leaned down to speak to her. "We gotta jam. Things are so not iced here."

Arina turned, giggling. "You just need to chill, honey buns. Here, go dance!" Before Sydney could protest, she was being shoved toward the three guys Arina had been dancing with.

Her friend bounced up beside her to giggle and join in.

Sydney couldn't get out a word before she was being bounced back and forth between dumb and dumber. A bump of hips against her ass, against her front. She felt like ping pong ball between two rabid cocks.

Arina was laughing delightedly, crawling all over the third guy.

Sydney slapped away the hands on her hips, slapped away the next one on her chest. Christ, this place was date rape central.

When one tried for a kiss, she shoved away with a grunt, and ended up smashing into someone behind her.

"Sorry!" She turned and nearly contained the curse. But it slipped out unbidden, and overly loud.

She didn't have time for another word, because the bouncing bodies were moving back toward her, eager for more.

To save herself, she turned and smashed herself against him, "You're supposed to protect me right?"

He opened his mouth to answer and she cut him off.

"Then do it. Dance."

Before he could say a word, one way or another, she grabbed his hands and planted them square on her ass, wrapped her arms around his neck and went into a mad grind.

If it made her tingle, if the surprise on his face made her want to giggle, well that was just part of the fun.

"Try not to look so shocked hero, sort of ruins the game."

She watched his expression wiped clean of the surprise again.

He didn't push her away, but he didn't pull her any closer either. And, okay, it hurt her pride a little bit.

"I can't protect you if you don't listen to me."

He was still going on about that?

Sydney rolled her eyes and dropped her arms, slid them over his sides, under his jacket.

And oh yes, it was muscle.

Was it ever.

Her hands ran around his back, feeling over cloth.

"Tell me something, Special Agent…." What was it again? "Clark."

"Kennedy."

"Whatever." Sydney pushed her body to the music, feeling each delicious bump of their hips. "Why would I need protecting? I'm just a law student."

He studied her face for a moment, but she didn't miss the way his eyes occasionally moved around the room, which meant if he was playing a game, pretending to be an agent, he was doing a damn good job of it. She just knew he was aware of every single person on the dance floor, and ready to step in the path of every one of them.

"I'm not at liberty to discuss it here. If you'd accompany me outside, or to a more secure location…"

Ahah!

"Nice line. But don't think I haven't heard something like it before." She slipped her hands under the edge of his shirt, having to pull it from the waistband of his pants. When she met taut bare skin on his back, he actually jumped and she nearly melted. "But you're gonna have to try harder then that. I don't think I've got easy tattooed on my forehead. Do I?"

"No ma'am."

He was really into this agent assigned to protect you deal.

Sydney skimmed her hands back around his sides, and discovered with a lazy brush of nails, that her would be protector had sensitive skin. It popped a little with goose bumps as she trailed them over his stomach. And tried not to swoon, really, but his stomach was rock hard, she could feel the suggestion of definition. Not too much, but enough to tell her he took care of his abs.

"Besides, how do I know this is legit?"

As if she'd said the magic words, one hand slid from her back to draw back the edge of his jacket. Before he could do it himself, she reached into the breast pocket and pulled free the identification.

So it was his picture, so it said he was special forces, so what? It could have been easily forged.

It told her his name was Leon S. Kennedy.

She wondered what the S stood for.

Her eyes met his. "You really think this is going to convince me?"

"No ma'am. But this might." He reached into his jacket again, releasing her completely to offer her a cell phone.

Sydney arched a brow. "You think giving me your number is going to convince me you're an agent?"

Oh really, he was…well it was something new at least.

A quite different approach to scoring a date.

"Press 1."

She did, putting the phone to her ear with a roll of her eyes.

It clicked twice, which had her brows lifting, she'd been to her grand father's house enough to know what those clicks meant. It meant she was using a phone with a signal jammer.

Unless he knew how to recreate that sound, she was starting to get the eerie feeling he was telling the truth.

The line pinged twice and a voice came over. "Authorization code."

Sydney blinked. "Excuse me?"

"Voice print identification not on record. Authorization code failed. Security breach, section A-14, subsection R." It was a mechanical voice. There was a hiss from the phone.

She dropped it before it hissed again and puffed black, fried like an egg on concrete on a steamy day.

Her eyes turned up to him, surprised.

"If you'll come with me, miss. I'll be happy to explain."

Arina danced over. "Ooooh Syd. Who's the hunk?"

Sydney didn't take her eyes off the man in front of her. "Nobody. I'll be back girl."

She started off the floor and he followed, effectively blocking anyone from so much as laying a single finger on her.

It was the first time she'd been in Fetish, on the floor, that no one dared grope her.

Maybe he did have some uses after all.

At the landing, she went left, passed a couple sucking each other's faces off.

Her hands hit the door to the restroom and she pushed inside.

The room was large, lined with stalls covered in graffiti, mostly obscene statements and crude pictures.

The floor, a hideous shade of mint green, was littered with puddles of god knew what, and stray strands of toilet paper. Cracked plaster, the color of egg yolk, met a ceiling with a few struggling naked bulbs that dangled forlornly from water stained tile.

She walked to the row of sinks that made up the counter, looked over by the murky looking mirror beyond it, lined with lipstick phone numbers and foggy places, brought on no doubt, by sweaty skin slapping against it.

All in all, it was a seedy bathroom in a seedy night club.

A few girls in a too tight dresses and go-go boots stood in front of the mirror, applying another layer of cake to their already clown like faces.

Sydney took one look at them and said, "Beat it."

One of them, obviously the ring leader of this gaggle of Barbie's masquerading as humans, turned her bleach blonde head to roll blood shot blue eyes. "Whatever. You can fuck in one of the stalls. We were here first."

Sydney took a step forward, smiling maliciously. "Listen, plastic princess, you can leave. Or I can make you. Your choice."

The blonde threw down her lipstick and swung around while it clinked in the porcelain behind her.

Her two cronies followed suit.

"Bring it on, bitch."

Sydney took a step forward, angry enough to be willing to take on all three at once. And the blonde echoed her, taking two steps on her knee high, six inch heels.

When she was less then two feet away, she was brought up short.

Because Kennedy stepped between them.

The blonde turned her eyes up, fuming, and her expression went from rage to flirtatious greed in two point five seconds.

"Why hi there, honey. You're wasting your time with trash like her."

To his credit, Kennedy remained carefully blank and silent.

Which, of course, infuriated the blonde.

As well as Sydney, who was embarrassed to be way laid from fighting twice in one night.

The blonde lifted her finger to poke it at him and he simply shifted. Her eyes dropped, her face whitened, and she took a step back.

"Whatever. Fine. Take the fucking bathroom. Come on girls."

Sydney was surprised when they all but climbed over the top of each other to get out.

"What did y---"

He turned and her eyes dropped.

Well of course, she'd missed it before somehow. He was armed.

A gun rested on the left side of his chest, holstered there. Shiny, silver, and deadly.

Which clenched it for her.

Fetish wasn't A-class by any means. But they had a strict policy regarding weapons.

He wouldn't have gotten passed security with a piece.

Unless he was cleared for it.

Sydney met his eyes, "What's going on?"

He didn't answer her, he went to each and every stall in the bathroom, opening doors, stepping in, back out, repeating it until he'd checked every one.

Of course, for hideaways, or listening devices.

When he was apparently satisfied the bathroom was clean, well at least of bugs or would be assassins, he came back to put his back against the door, holding it closed.

"Your grandfather is a double agent, working for the U.S government to gather information on the Umbrella Corporation."


	4. Showdown

****

Authors Notes: Thanks to my newest reviewer, Lyndsey. Its great reviews that keep a girl coming back for more.

Let's see where this little tale is taking us shall we?

SHOWDOWN:

Her mind went completely blank, she could only stare as he continued.

"It's recently come to our attention that there might be a mole inside of Umbrella, someone who's discovered his duplicity. Until such a time as we can establish whether or not his covers been blown, his family is considered high priority. If there's a leak, if someone knows, their first objective will be to eliminate him, and anyone close to him that he might have revealed information to."

Sydney's mind couldn't seem to grasp what he was saying.

She was just…she was simply too shocked to do more then gape at him.

"My grandfather is a double agent?"

"Yes."

"For how long?"

"He was recruited before he was hired by Umbrella. He's been with the agency since long before you were born."

Well…that was….so he wasn't only some big wig for Umbrella. He was also a secret agent gathering information on Umbrella. Which meant apparently the government thought something stank in the pharmaceutical company.

Why did she feel like she'd just stepped out of reality and into some alternate universe?

Probably because everything she thought she knew about her grandfather was a lie.

And because of it, she now apparently needed a body guard.

He was watching her quite steadily.

"…so what now? Am I supposed to go with you somewhere? Witness protection or something?"

"No. You're to continue your life as normal. If we were to pull you out, it might alert anyone who could be tracking you. So, you're to simply go on and not let on that you know."

That was ridiculous.

"So why tell me then? Why not just watch me from a distance?"

"In a situation of this scale, my superiors felt there was a need to make you aware of the risk, so that you'll be on alert."

Angry, she took a step toward him. And didn't like it one bit when he looked down his nose at her.

"So they want me safe, they want me protected, and they send in some wet behind the ears rookie to watch me? I must be real important to them to merit such a high level of protection."

You could have choked on the sarcasm in that statement.

This close, she noticed his eyes were very, very, very blue. The color of the sky just before morning. When its still that rich, nearly fathomless shade, tinged with the edges of a new day.

Getting poetic now Syd?

"I'm a level three, rank A agent. I was assigned because I fit the profile."

"What's the profile?"

"Young enough to pass for a student but qualified in undercover work."

"In other words, pretty enough not to arouse any suspicions. Tell me something, hero, you even know how to use that gun?" Testing, because she didn't spend two days a week at the range and another two with her martial arts instructor to better her health, she went for the gun.

It was a fake, the second he moved to stop her, she went for his wrist. She was going to grab it, hyper extend his elbow and drop him with a low kick to the knee.

He moved like a well oiled machine. Gripped her wrist instead and turned her with his body, fast, too fast, he had her pinned against the door, her arm twisted up behind her shoulder blades, his knee jammed rather dangerously against her groin. She opened her mouth to snarl something and the hammer clicked on his gun.

She realized, in her rage, she'd missed him even drawing it. But it was now pressed against her forehead.

Her eyes snapped angrily.

Mostly from the first fission of fear that tripped down her spine.

And another because his face was still so carefully blank.

His voice came quietly, with an edge of command. "Don't ever do that again."

"Why not? You can't hurt me. You don't scare me."

He was an inch away. Close enough to kiss.

That she even thought it, made her so angry she saw red.

He released her to step back and holster his gun.

That he was so calm, that he was so good looking, that he'd just turned her world upside down, it was too much.

It was the only excuse she had for what she did.

Her foot came out, catching him off guard. It landed solidly against his hip, not a solid blow, but good enough to send him back a step in surprise.

She didn't give him enough time to recover, she followed through with a rather heroic shoulder slam, hitting him in that rock solid chest, driving with all her strength.

He hit the side of the stall with a loud crash of sound and she mimicked him, driving her knee up, digging it into his balls.

It was enough, oh yes, it was, to see his cheeks flush with either rage, embarrassment, or pain from having his jewels threatened.

She jerked the gun from his holster and put it against his forehead.

"I'm not just another pretty face."


	5. Attraction

For my newest reviewers, fear not, Leon is in no danger of being outsmarted by a girl. And thanks for your helpful reviews, the fact that some of you found her beyond annoying, means she's just where I want her to be at the moment.

I do hope, despite any distaste you might have for her, you continue to read. I promise, she's isn't all that bad.

Or is she? mwhaha.

ATTRACTION:

His eyes flashed and she wanted to cheer.

Because he was finally, possibly, as angry as she was.

His eyes slid, just a little, over her shoulder.

Thinking someone had come in, she started to turn to look. A quarter second after she did, she knew she'd walked right into his trap.

His hand drove up under her upper arm, pointing the gun straight up at the ceiling before he followed the movement to spin her around, to jerk her back against him, pinning the arm with the gun around her, his other wrapped around her throat. But he didn't stop there, oh no, he hooked his ankle around her right one and pushed, sending her sprawling forward, tearing the gun from her hand at the same time.

She hit her hands and knees, tripped, angry beyond belief.

Before she could even think to move, he gripped her shoulder, he was grabbing her arm, pulling it sharp and high behind her again and bringing her to her knees.

She cried out in pain and frustration.

"Okay! OKAY!"

Kennedy let go, just like that.

"You win! You bastard."

The second he started to step back, she drove her elbow back, aiming for his groin.

He side stepped it easily, put a hand around her throat and drove her back against the stall, effectively stealing her wind along with the last of her resolve.

"You finished?"

She hissed at him.

"Do I pass?"

Sydney snarled.

"Stop testing me."

The bathroom door squeaked. She was suddenly on her feet and quite completely blocked by his body.

At the first suggestion of female laughter and emerging coeds, he had to turn, shielding the gun between them. Her hands took it out of instinct, freeing his. One slapped against the stall, the other jerking her close.

Before she could do more then blink, he put his mouth against her neck, nuzzling.

It shocked her, and effectively turned her into a puddle.

She tilted her head to the side to accommodate him, her free hand sliding up his back to grip a handful of muscle.

The giggling coeds were obviously quite happy watching the show.

He nuzzled her skin, the sensitive place behind her ear. Her body started humming a happy tune.

At least until he whispered, "Holster my gun."

Well of course.

DUH.

She was so angry to have even fallen prey for a moment, she couldn't resist beating him at his own game.

She holstered the gun alright but with her free hand she also fisted his hair, shivering a little to find it as soft as it looked, and yanked his head back to set her teeth into his throat.

He made some sound.

Whether from surprise, pain, pleasure, a combination of the three, she didn't know. It didn't matter.

He tasted like sex.

He tasted like man.

And, okay, yeah, it had been a helluva long time.

It was the only excuse she had for the first flash of greed that nearly reduced her to a pleading, begging, mindless thing.

And of course, one of the voices would have to be someone she knew.

"Sydney? Oh my god! You go GIRL!"

She let go and he stepped back. But the marks of her teeth and the fabulous hickey couldn't be hidden by anything.

She smiled sweetly at him.

It was his game, now he had to stick to it.

Her hands slid under his jacket, over his back. A seemingly sexy caress.

She kept her hands on him as she turned to smile.

"Hey Shelly."

The girl in question was practically foaming at the mouth.

That she was the head of the gossip mill meant two things. That Sydney Delcroix's trip to the bathroom to suck face with a stranger was sure to be common knowledge by morning, and that there was no getting around introducing Kennedy.

Surprisingly, he was all charm.

"Hi. I'm Luke Lawson."

Shelly caught his hand to giggle. "You're pre-med aren't you?"

He smiled winningly. "How'd you guess?"

One of the other girls piped in. "All the pre-med guys are totally foxy."

Kennedy winked.

Which sent them all into a fit of giggles.

Shelly perked up, unable not to stir the waters. "So, this means you're definitely over Thad huh?"

At the mention of the bottom feeding seed of all that was evil and wrong, Sydney only smiled. "Thad who?"

The girls all giggled and Sydney saw Shelly making a mental note to tell everyone that Sydney Delacroix was soooo over Thad Bishop.

Sydney wrapped her arm tighter around Kennedy's hips. "Well if you'll excuse us, we were just leaving to…well…" She smirked sexily. "You know."

They left to giggles.

The second they got beyond the door, she started to pull away.

But his left hand dropped, fingers sliding into hers to grip.

She turned startled eyes to him.

His lips pressed to her ears, looking to everyone watching like he was whispering a dirty suggestion.

"You just basically told those girls I'm your lover. We have to maintain the image. Shiver and lower your eyes like I said something dirty."

She did, but only to hide the anger that was flashing in them.

Kennedy's mouth turned up into a half smile that was….fucking Christ, way too sexy.

Sydney wasn't too far gone to realize he was leaving his gun hand open.


	6. Awakening

Bryant, no worries at all. I didn't take it badly as I knew it wasn't meant that way. Admittedly, I designed her to be a character not easily tolerated.

Imagine if she was a sweet, normal girl. How boring would that be?

And Mugetsu, don't worry. We're getting to him. :)

Thanks again to everyone who's reading and reviewing. Let's continue.

AWAKENING:

She held her tongue, furious. As much as she didn't like the guy, she wasn't a total idiot. If she really was being watched by people who wanted her dead, it was exactly in her best interest to be a brat about it.

So instead she let go of his hand to slip her hand under the edge of his belt, touching teasing fingers to the smooth skin of his lower back.

He jumped a little and it brought a smirk to her lips. "Regretting your own game?"

His voice was very quiet as he moved toward the doors. "This isn't a game, ma'am. This is your life at stake."

Sydney slipped her hand a little lower, feeling her nails drag just a little below his tailbone, playing at the top of one cheek. "My life is a game, Agent Kennedy. And you can call me Sydney."

They pushed at the doors together, Kennedy maneuvering her to somehow be first in front of him and then behind him as they cleared the doors and stepped out into the warm brush of night air.

It was mid summer in Boston, and though the night had brought with it a cooling kiss of breeze, the east coast heat still lingered in a heavy hand of humidity.

There was a consistent surge of cars moving on the road beside the night club, traffic stopping, starting, people going wherever their lives demanded.

Sydney dropped her hands as he did, stepping away to turn and look at him.

"Where do you suggest we go, hero? My place?"

He turned to look at her before glancing away to scan the parking lot.

"Seems reasonable. We'll take my car. I haven't checked yours yet."

"For what?"

He simply stared at her.

"…oh you don't really think they're going to try to bomb me." The idea was simply ludicrous. "That's reaching Kennedy."

He shrugged. "It's not my job to humor you. It's my job to consider every possibility."

"You know, for supposedly being good at undercover work, you really fucked the pooch on blending in."

Kennedy was leading her across the lot toward a black sedan.

She didn't miss the way his hand was never far from his holster.

"I came straight from the air port. I didn't have time to stop and change."

"Well, fair warning, you look like a feeb."

Kennedy moved, laid a hand on her arm and guided her to the car door, standing there like…well like a body guard while she opened the door.

"Once I change, I'll fit in better."

She turned her eyes up to his face, standing in the cradle of the doorway. "You'd stand out in any crowd."

He dropped his scanning eyes to her face, for just a moment, and then went back to looking over her at the night beyond.


	7. Interlude

**Hi hi, everyone. New Chapter up and going. **

**Skyle- Thank you for that fabulous review. I have to agree, too much of one style can really burn a story. And don't worry, at the present time I don't see there being any...you know. mwhaha.**

**Bryant- Most definately, who could keep their hands off? And I'm so glad she gets under your skin. Thats the sign of a good character. :P**

**Thylja - I agree. Things are going to get tricky for Leon. Let's hope you stay tuned.**

**Shall we continue? Thanks so much for all my reviewers, you guys really make a girl want to keep going. **

**INTERLUDE:**

**Sydney slipped into the passenger seat and shut the door.**

**She had yet to find a moment to actually think about anything that had happened to her.**

**If you would have told her that her grandfather, a boring old biologist, was actually a double agent seeking internal scandal amongst an international pharmaceutical company, she'd have said you'd been reading way too many spy novels.**

**The car door opened and Special Agent assigned to protect her, Leon S. Kennedy, climbed in.**

**Well that was the proof right there.**

**She rolled her head to look out the window.**

**The first ten minutes of the ride was made in silence, both of them thinking their respective thoughts.**

**He broke it first, "I realize that this is difficult for you."**

**That was the biggest understatement of the year.**

**"Well how understanding of you." The sarcasm was as crisp as freshly washed sheets. "You come in and basically stick yourself into every aspect of my life like some…human abnormality, and all you have to say is that you realize its difficult for me?"**

**His face was carefully blank.**

**"I'm doing my job. And believe me, I don't want to do this any more then you want me around."**

**Well…why was that so insulting?**

**"Then why bother? Go away. I can take care of myself." She turned her face to look out the window.**

**He was pointedly silent.**

**Damn it.**

**This was not how she wanted to spend the next few….whatevers.**

**It wasn't that Kennedy was necessarily hard on the eyes. But having a body guard was as annoying as having a parent breathing down your neck.**

**She'd be limited to what she could do, where she could go, who she could see.**

**Having that kind of restriction put on her freedom really pissed her off.**

**"So what's the rules?"**

**He glanced over at her, then back at the road. "Excuse me?"**

**"These kind of things always have rules. What's yours?" She turned in the seat to face him, drawing her leg up to her chest. "Do I have a ten o'clock curfew? Do I have to take a gun into the bathroom with me? Out in public do you have to follow me like a dog? What?"**

**She saw his jaw tighten a little. Which told her he was annoyed. That was just fine. She was too. She'd rather have him annoyed then so fucking blank.**

**"We'll discuss it after we reach your residence."**

**"Christ on a crock pot Kennedy. It's my _apartment."_**

**He was silent, watching the road.**

**"Can't you get that stick out of your ass long enough to act like a human and not a cyborg?"**

**His jaw tightened farther.**

**"For fuck's sake!" She looked out her window again. "Fine, sit over there like some retarded version of James Bond. Whatever."**

**After another ten minutes, she'd had enough.**

**"What does the S stand for?"**

**He glanced over once before looking back at the road. "What?"**

**"The S. Leon S. Kennedy. What's the S for?"**

**He made a left into the parking lot of her apartment complex and slid the sedan into the first empty spot he found. It was a half a block from her actual building.**

**His eyes turned to her, brows lifted. "Scott. Leon Scott Kennedy."**

**"Nice. You come from money?"**

**He shrugged and opened his car door. She didn't miss that his hand was near his weapon, or that his eyes scanned the lot in the time it took her to open the door and step clear.**

**"My family has money."**

**"I'd guess so, with a name like Kennedy." Sydney watched him move, the careful, nearly fluid way he took in the entire environment. She didn't doubt that he could utilize anything and everything around them, from the other parked cars, to the trash bin that set at the far end of the walk.**

**He took her arm, sliding his hand down to wrap their fingers together. It was a lover's move, as was the adoring look on his face as he led her up the stairs and she withdrew her key to buzz them in.**

**She wasn't ready for the kick of pain that came with knowing that look, that touch, was nothing but a lie.**

**Really, she'd gone without a lover for way too long. She was getting desperate to even consider somebody with their head crammed so far up some bureaucrats ass that they were practically a poster boy for republicans everywhere.**

**On the other end of the scale, he couldn't believe his dumb luck.**

**Of all of the marks to be stuck watching, he was hitched with a fem Nazi suffering from an overdose of testosterone.**

**He looked down at their joined hands, his gloved, and hers small and feminine.**

**She was lethal with those hands, with their silver tipped nails.**

**She'd caught him by surprise a few times in the bathroom, showed real skill when she didn't let the anger get the best of her judgment.**

**He glanced back at her face, pretty, nearly exotic.**

**And he remembered, the first time he'd seen her picture.**


	8. The Flashback

****

Flashback:

The door opened, revealing beyond its wooden face, a single man in black.

The suit was perfect, the tie straight, the knot both pristine and narrow.

In the chair at the glossy table, Leon S. Kennedy waited, dressed in khaki cargo pants, a green polo shirt. He knew why he was here.

He'd suffered through the disciplinary hearing, listened to them talk about him like he was nothing, an ant, an insect.

In the black ops division of the United States Government, there was no probation, no suspension without pay.

It was capital punishment.

He'd stood in a room with twelve men while they'd weighed his worth and decided, in the span of six hours, whether he'd live or die.

He'd been granted leniency not because of his sterling record, not because he'd hunted, taken down and eliminated over thirty enemies of the state. But because he had a face, both young and handsome, that might be perfect for what may be his last chance assignment.

After Reinhold had escaped, wounded, he'd trekked across the ice, somehow managing to get to the evac point.

A smarter man, would have turned the gun on himself.

Because he was now at their mercy, and would live or die by their will.

"Kennedy." The man in black stood and tossed manila folder onto the table.

It slid, swirling, across the glossy table until Leon's fingers caught it.

"If you fail," Said the man, drawing Leon's attention back to his stern, emotionless face. The widows peak of his black hair, carefully slicked back from those bottomless, soulless blue eyes. "You will be eliminated."

Leon nodded, saying nothing.

The man in black turned and was gone, closing the door with a snap behind him.

He opened the folder, looking carefully at the photograph that waited atop a three inch stack of papers.

The subject's name was Delacroix, Sydney J. She was a student, 23, pretty.

And she was eye ball deep in conspiracy.

They'd been watching her, weighing the option of sending someone in to extract her, but with Leon's failure it had presented them with a new option.

To plant a mole, offering her a bodyguard and giving themselves someone on the inside, someone to gather information about her friends, her lifestyle.

They suspected someone close to her was working for a terrorist group who called themselves The Way and shadowing his own assignment.

He was to do anything, and everything possible to gain her trust and see that no harm came to her.

When the time was right, he'd be contacted, given new directives, essentially told where and when to take her.

The outline of his mission was simple.

Once a week, he'd dead drop any new information into a wastebasket at Fetish, a dance club she frequented. And the key point in the structure of The Way.

The Way had publicly admitted to more then four attacks against the Umbrella Pharmaceutical Company. Making themselves vigilantes and threatening an investigation into the heart of White Umbrella that had been years in the making.

Her grandfather was suspected of being a member of The Way.

A double agent, he had recently shown leanings toward radical actions against Umbrella.

His job was to convince the girl he was merely there for her protection.

If she suspected his true purpose, he was to eliminate her, as simple as that.

Nothing could jeopardize the governments building of a corporate case against Umbrella. Nothing.

He stared down at that pretty face, smiling at something off camera.

Eliminated.

One way or the other, by the end of the assignment, one of them would be dead.

If it went well, it would be her, taken out to preserve years of espionage.

If it didn't, him, to leave the government without any holes.

As far as legalities were concerned, he didn't exist. They'd disavow knowledge of him and he'd become nothing, a memory.

He traced a finger down the dark line of her hair.

Eliminated.

It was the first time in three years, that he felt a pang of regret.


	9. With the Sun

**bwehehe. Thanks to everyone who keeps on coming back for more. Without you guys, well I guess I wouldn't be posting. Or would I? This is a bit of a kicker before the action starts. Because lets face it, what good are my stories without some action?**

**Until then, romantic drivel. And no, for those of you who might think it, I dont see Leon and Sydney getting together. I really don't plan on this story turning into a love story. Sadly, sometimes the characters run away with me and I just can't stop them! **

**WITH THE SUN**

**The morning light was bright against the closed lids of his eyes.**

**He woke as he always did, immediately.**

**But he wasn't in his Spartan apartment, rising to the stimulating swirl of brewing java. He was waking on an over stuffed white leather couch in an apartment that looked like the purple people eater had thrown up all over it.**

**The walls were lavender, graced with different prints of white orchids, of glossy looking Iris, of water lilies on a sunlit pond. A television rested before him on a wicker stand, offering a muted morning news report.**

**He'd left the t.v. on out of habit when he'd fallen asleep the night before.**

**The cover over his body was magenta, splotched with different shades of violet, fuchsia, and grape.**

**Apparently, Sydney Delacroix loved purple.**

**Off to one side, the kitchen sat, open ended, offering a view through the archway of stainless steel appliances. The refrigerator graced with pictures of friends, of a drunken Sydney in a paper crown giving a drunken salute.**

**The counter was littered with bills, with half empty coffee cups, and a sink full of used dishes. Obviously, she also wasn't a clean freak.**

**The over organized soul in his body, gave a reluctant shudder.**

**There was a broom beside the two seater table in the kitchen. It still had plastic wrap around the bristles.**

**Leon slid the cover down his legs, swinging them to the floor.**

**The carpet was off white and plush, obviously standard with the apartment, though the rug lying along the floor beside the door wasn't. It was a riot of colors, rainbow and streaked with reds that looked nearly like spilled blood.**

**If she was anything, she was drawn to vibrant things.**

**The lava lamp on the table beside him burbled bubbles of violent pink into a goo that pulsed from the light inside.**

**On the wall beside the kitchen, a life size portrait hung, showing a woman in the throws of orgasm. She was wrapped in nothing but a sheer red veil, that encased her body like a whisper or a dream, the pale skin of her showing through like a mystery.**

**It was a beautiful portrait. He wondered who it was.**

**The bedroom door was still closed, sealing away the light from the open window beyond the couch.**

**The clock atop the television on the cable box told him it was just shy of seven.**

**His bare feet crossed the floor.**

**Unwilling to wake her if she was sleeping, he eased the door open, peeking into the twilit dark beyond.**

**The bed, canopied in shimmering purple gauze, revealed a lump of violet velvet and a glimpse of dark hair peeking beyond.**

**He slid into the room, soundless, crossing the floor.**

**The cover rose and fell steadily, showing her sleeping peacefully.**

**Leon moved to stand beside the bed, looking down at her.**

**She hadn't bothered to remove her make up, it stained like black smears around her eyes, trailing down one cheek.**

**And staring at the mess of it, he knew she'd cried herself to sleep.**

**It hurt him to see it, to know he'd brought her pain like that. To know that his deception, would only bring her more.**

**Her eyes fluttered and slid open.**

**For a moment, they stared at each other and it seemed words were superfluous.**

**The knock on the door beyond the bedroom had her throwing the covers back.**

**The moment she moved from the bedroom, he went to work, tossing covers and lumping the pillows.**

**Whoever it was, he had to make it look like they'd slept together.**

**His fingers jerked his shirt over his head, tossing it negligently onto the lamp, as if hurried hands had launched it carelessly.**

**He tugged on his sweat pants, easing them down on one hip, as if he'd dressed hurriedly.**

**He stepped into her bathroom, done in shades of blue and purple. His fingers found the tap, spilled water into his palms and he shoved it through his hair, sticking it around his hair as if he'd slept on it sweaty.**

**Staring at the mess of his hair, he stepped from the bedroom.**

**Sydney stood in the entry way, talking with the woman from the club the night before.**

**"And then you were just like**

**" The woman stopped, blinking at the sight of him.**

**He affected a sexy smirk, scratching at his stomach lazily as he stepped up to them.**

**Sydney turned, following her gaze. And it was almost worth it. Almost. To see the shock on her face, to watch her eyes drop down his chest, over his stomach, his legs.**

**Leon slid his arm around her waist, tugging her into his body. "Mornin baby."**

**She opened her mouth to say something and he kissed her.**

**He would have left it at that, a brush of mouth but she melted into him. Her fingers found his hair and twisted.**

**It became a double edged sword, cutting both ways.**

**And went on, wet and full of tongue, until the woman cleared her throat.**

**Leon let go, immediately putting on a smile that said he was thinking naughty things. That he actually was, was unknown to anyone but him…and maybe the woman pressed so tight into his front that she could surely feel it.**

**Sydney stepped away from him, giving her friend a smile and flushed cheeks.**

**"Sex is a drug."**

**The woman snickered. "With him, I imagine so. Damn girl, you really really stole the pick of the litter last night."**

**Leon gave the woman a wink, moving into the kitchen. He could still hear, but it gave them the illusion of privacy.**

**"Yeah, well. Luke looks better on my bed then Thad ever did."**

**The woman laughed loudly. "I can imagine. Shelly said you were making out in the bathroom but I was like …no. NO WAY. Not Syd. She's not the one night stand type."**

**Sydney smiled as if she had a dirty little secret as Leon stepped back into the room, carrying a bottle of water.**

**She turned his game against him, looping an arm over his waist and playing her nails over his stomach muscles.**

**"Well look at him. How could I say no?"**

**"I hear that." The woman gave him a slinky smile. "So Luke…pre-med?"**

**He grinned. "Guilty."**

**"I gotta tell you. I've never had a doctor who looked like you."**

**"Well, maybe we can fix that." He gave her a wink, feeling the goose bumps spread over his body from that rake of nails on flesh.**

**The woman giggled, giving his big blue eyes as Sydney released him.**

**"You coming to Psyche this morning?"**

**Sydney sighed, looking back at Leon. "I dunno. Can I leave this behind?"**

**The woman licked her lips. "Not sure I could."**

**"Go on without me. I'll catch up."**

**"Don't blame you." The woman turned to open the door. "Bye bye Luke."**

**"Bye bye….."**

**"Arina."**

**"Bye bye Arina."**

**Giggling, she shut the door at her back. And the grin slid off his face like a hand had wiped it clean.**

**Sydney turned to meet his eyes. "You kiss like you have feelings. it's a shame we both know that robots don't."**

**And so they were back to where they'd started.**

**"I had to make it look like we were lovers."**

**"Yeah, too bad I'd rather make love to a rabid pit bull."**

**Well, that pretty much told him what he already knew. That she didn't harbor any sort of liking for him at all.**

**"I don't remember offering."**

**As if surprised by his come back, she paused in getting a bottle of water.**

**"Well…good. Because I wouldn't." She turned back to the fridge, muttering under her breath.**

**"Look, is there any way we could just kill the animosity?"**

**"Well I dunno, Kennedy. Is there any way you could just fuck off and we could pretend you weren't here to baby sit me?"**

**"Its unlikely."**

**"I thought so."**

**Sydney stepped out of the kitchen. "I gotta go to class. You gonna tag along and shadow me?"**

**"I have to."**

**"Why am I not surprised?"**

**She stepped into her bedroom and slammed the door.**

**Leon watched her go and the second she was beyond the door, he reached down to adjust himself.**

**Just what he needed, to be attracted to her.**

**She was the opposite of everything he wanted in a woman. She was bitchy, rude, stuck up. In other words, she and Ada Wong could have been twins.**

**After Ada, he's sworn off women completely.**

**If he ever thought about dating again, it was going to be a woman who didn't make him want to rip out all his hair and choke himself with it.**

**He dressed. Jeans, blue and red striped polo, Nikes.**

**The bedroom door opened, showing her clean of any make up and in a black t-shirt inscribed with the words "Jersey Girls aren't trash. Trash gets picked up."**

**For some reason, it was exactly what he figured she'd wear.**

**"Ready, you shit shoveling automaton?"**

**She was possibly the most obnoxious woman on earth.**

**"As ready as I'll ever be, you gold spoon fed Daddy's girl."**

**Sydney stared at him for a long moment before she let out a delighted laugh.**

**"You know…you might not be so bad after all."**

**"So glad you approve."**


	10. The Agony and the Agency

So here we go. The action, the intrigue. It all starts to find its feet here. To answer your question Rita, you're absolutely right, something could have happened to Leon's car while he was in the club. Perhaps he's not as good as he thinks he is for nothing thinking of that. :P Thanks for pointing it out. I love when it when people can find plot holes in my stories. Helps me improve.

Thanks to Break the Silence and Tre0220. For the record Break, who could blame a girl for wanting to hook up with him? Bwhaha.

And Tre0220, thanks for the compliment. I do enjoy Leon. He is one of my most favorite characters in the series, I try to give him that boy next door yet bad ass vibe. Good to know it comes out well.

Until later, onward we go.

The Agony and the Agency

"You can't follow me into the classroom."

"Why not?"

Sydney paused, halfway across the quad, on their way to Psyche. And Kennedy was looking at her like he didn't get the basic function of a classroom.

"Don't you have any college time bouncing around in that blue blood?"

He tilted his head, rather like a curious dog. "I went into the Academy right out of highschool."

Ah.

Well that explained that.

"Look, people think you're premed."

"So?"

"So somehow I don't think premeds take Psyche."

Kennedy gave her a brilliant grin that she had to admit, disturbed her already overly active libido. "To under the human body. One must first understand the human mind."

She stared at him, he stared at her, people ambled by discussing politics and parties and who puked in whose hair at the Alpha Beta house charity ball.

"What a crock of shit."

But god help her, she had to laugh after she'd said it. And that smile, boyish, somehow charming even while it was cocky, made her heart skip a few beats.

As did the hand that gripped hers and interlaced their fingers, swinging their arms playfully as they walked.

Admittedly, they looked like lovers strolling together to class.

What upset her the most, was that she didn't have to even slap on a fake smile. She was grinning like an idiot.

One of those smiles that says you're in terrible lust if not love. Dopey and dorky and sweet.

Unfortunately, she should have known that that joy was going to be short lived.

Because Thad Bishop was all but stalking across the quad toward them.

"Great," She muttered, "Here we go."

But even she couldn't have predicted that Thad wouldn't have even opened his mouth to make some snide mark.

Nope.

He just lifted his fist and swung right for Leon's face.

>>>>>>>>>>>

_"Is everything in order?"_

_"Yes, Master."_

_"Our disciple is in place?"_

_"Of course Master. And awaiting your instruction."_

_The clink of goblets, the rustle of cloth._

_"And the girl?"_

_"She seems to have taken on a new lover, Master."_

_"Is he a threat to the path?"_

_"He seems to be nothing but another student, Master."_

_"There cannot be any complications. The reckoning is upon us. The time of coming is at hand. The girl is a priority, see that she is not...corrupted."_

_"It shall be done, Master."_

_"See that is. And tell our disciple, that his sacrifice will lead to the enlightenment of many."_

_"He will be pleased, Master."_

_"No. He will be honored. And his death shall be a candle in the darkness of ignorance. When the light outshines the dark, THE WAY shall be revealed."_

_>>>>>>>>> _

Leon had a handful of moments to make his decision.

The man, shorter, broader, blonder was coiled with so much pulsing fury and tension that he knew it wasn't going to come to verbal blows. He was going to attack.

But if he anticipated, if he spun out of the way, dropped low and took him down. It could very well blow his cover.

He was supposed to be some snotty pre-med student. Its unlikely he'd be as sharp, fast, or honed as he was if he was just some silver spoon fed WASP.

So instead of blowing his cover, he kept the stupid smile on his face and took that furious fist right in the face.

It was a good blow, if backed more by anger then real strength.

His teeth racked together, his lip split wide open in a burst of blood. Stars, white and pretty, exploded across his vision as his head whipped to the side and Sydney let out a furious shout. Hopefully on his behalf.

"Thad! Are you fucking crazy?"

Leon, his hand slipping out of Sydney's, did what any normal man would do, he crouched low, throwing a hand over his mouth to feel the wet, red seep of blood.

"Son of a..." He gave the other man hot, furious eyes. "What the hell man!"

"I couldn't believe it when I heard," Thad paced, grabbed Sydney's arms and shook her. "THIS is what you left me for?"

Leon, who'd been content to play the poor abused lover, couldn't simply crouch there while he shook Sydney like she was a rabid dog. So when he spoke, it was low and quietly. "Let go of her."

Thad gave him a rage filled, arrogant look. "Look pal, no offense, but she and I have way more history. So do me a big favor and stay the fuck out of it. Unless you want another punch in the face."

Sydney shoved on Thad. "You testerone driven monkey fuck! Do you really think this has anything to do with you?"

Thad shook her again, twice and she snarled. Leon, very slowly, got to his feet.

"Well why else? You're trying to get back at me for sleeping with Mary. What better way then to jump into the sack with the first stupid preppy bitch who comes along?"

Sydney, still furiously trying to get out of his grip, positive she was going to wear bruises on her arms from his fingers, gave him an insulting grin. "Oh I don't know Thad. Maybe because he's an amazing lay and pretty much proved my theory that you're hung like an infant."

He slapped her, hard enough she felt her cheekbone ring with it. But that was okay, she'd been hoping for that. It got his hands off of her long enough for her to shove her palms into his sternum.

She'd have followed it through with a kick to the groin.

If Leon Kennedy hadn't done it for her.

Somewhat like the night before at the club, Leon made short work of Thad. A solid kick to the groin, a fist in the face, and the poster boy for nazi breeding collapsed on the ground holding himself and spitting blood.

"You sniveling sack of shit!"

Leon grabbed Sydney's hand, pulled her into his body, looping an arm around her shoulders. "I told you not to touch her. And if I ever see you hit her again, I'll do more then kick you in the nuts. I'll rip em off and use them for earrings."

Sydney was laughing when Leon pulled her away, leaving Thad furious and cursing on the ground behind them.

"That was pretty stupid." She was dabbing at his mouth.

She hadn't made it to Psyche class. Instead, she'd chosen to take him back to her apartment and put some ice on his face.

His mouth was swollen, though thankfully the lip had stopped oozing blood.

"Couldn't blow my cover." He was watching her thoughtful face as she dabbed some kind of sealant over his busted lip. Her cheek was reddened, showing a nearly perfect hand print.

"Hmm." She commented quietly, tracing ever so gently over the swollen softness of his mouth.

"Why..." He stopped himself from asking, it wasn't any of his business anyway.

But she picked up the question for him and finished it. "Why would I date somebody like that?"

Leon nodded, saying nothing as she turned to the sink to rinse out the wash cloth she'd used.

"He comes from money. He's handsome and Republican and right wing."

"No offense, but that doesn't really seem like you."

"Well..." She gave Leon a tiny smile that put dimples in her cheeks. "He isn't. But my family thinks he should be."

Ahhhh.

Well that explained a lot.

"You don't really seem like the type to do something just because your family thinks you should either."

She paused, glanced over at him.

He was so impossibly handsome. That shaggy hair, those bedroom eyes. Mr. Class A Agent. How could she explain obligation to him? Surely he already knew.

"I'm here, aren't I? The Senators daughter. Becoming a lawyer."

"...you don't want to be a lawyer?"

She shrugged, glancing at her face in the mirror with a wince. It was starting to bruise, which she'd been afraid of.

"I don't know. Maybe." No. Not at all. She wanted to paint. She'd always wanted to paint. "Or maybe I'd just like to be me. And not what everyone thinks I should be."

He had moved at some point because when she turned, just a little to leave the bathroom, he was standing right there.

And she had to look up into his face.

His fingers hovered over her cheek before they laid there, gently on the bruise.

"I'm sorry I let him hurt you."

It was quiet, so quiet, that admission. And she was lost, somewhere, in the blue of his eyes.

"I...it's..." She forgot, couldn't remember anything she'd been meaning to say. She was befuddled, entranced. And didn't know how NOT to be.

Her eyes fluttered closed, one hand already lying flat on his shirt, twisting there as she lifted herself up, up wanting..no...needing to taste his mouth again.

Leon, not a stupid man by any means, knew that this. This was a huge breach of ethics. This was wrong. Bad. It went against everything he personally believed in.

He lifted his hand from her face to put it on her shoulder, to stop her before he couldn't stop himself. When his eyes caught the movement just beyond the window.

Just a flash, just a movement but time slowed down.

Seemed to crystalize into a shining single breath.

He pulled her to the side, too fast, not fast enough when the glass cracked, when they tiny flash of silver broke through with a tinkle of sound.

It skimmed her arm and she hissed, thrown out of her trance.

"What the—"

"Get down. Now." He jerked her to the side, already moving in a running crouch with her from the bathroom, out into the main room.

"Leon...whats going on!"

He gripped her hand, pulling her toward the door, the other jerked the gun from the base of his spine, clicking off the safety.

Her eyes widened, flashed wide with fear.

"Leon?"

"I have to get you out of here. Stay close to me, try not to draw too much attention. I don't think they're stupid enough to try for you in public."

He threw open the door to the apartment and she was forced to half run, half trip after him as he swept down the hallway, scanning left, right always careful to shield her with his body as they moved.

She hit the button for the elevator and there was sound inside her apartment, a crash.

He gripped her arm, pulling her toward the stairs, so fast she was nearly off her feet with the movement.

"No time. Move."

They pounded down the steps, floor by floor, Leon moving like a well oiled machine, gripping the gun and sighting down each separate flight of stairs.

When the emergency door spilled open and the feet started after them, Sydney's heart stopped for almost a whole minute.

They burst from the back door, out into the alley, already moving.

"My car it's–"

"Forget it. It could be bombed. And mine too."

The sun beat down as he took her right, further down the alley and finally out into the street beyond. Traffic was light to nonexistent.

But the first car he found, a beat up looking green Toyota, had the gift of being left unlocked.

"We can't steal someone's car!" She was outraged.

"You want to stand here and die? Get in!"

She scrambled in and he was right behind her, slamming the door.

Deft hands began the process of hot wiring it. "Take my gun, keep watch, anything suspicious. Shoot."

Still suffering from shock, she obeyed, grabbing the giant weapon. It was heavy, wide, nearly too wide for her hands.

The side of the barrel read Desert Eagle. It was a .50 calibur Magnum. She didn't feel this was really the time to tell Leon that it would also likely break her wrist if she tried to fire it.

From the alley, two men emerged, glancing up and down the street.

One wore a baseball cap, the other a sock hat. They were dressed casually, jeans, t-shirts. But the gun in the hand of the one on the left told her they weren't just kids.

"Uh Leon...?"

"What?"

"They're coming."

Her voice cracked a little with that statement.

But it was cut short by the purr of the engine and the slam of the stick shift.

"Hold on, sweetheart."

She did, grabbing the oh shit handle that waited on the ceiling of the car.

Like a shot, they were off, with a squeal of tires.

The two men were yelling, chasing them down the street. But they were quickly lost as Leon took a turn on two wheels.

For nearly five whole minutes, she tried to remember how to breathe regularly, waiting for the moment when unmarked black cars would explode out onto the street to give chase. Like some bad action movie.

But things were quiet, so quiet, and after another five minutes, she started to relax.

Her hand moved, gripped his wrist on the steering wheel.

"Good god Leon. Do you think..."

"That they were trying to kill you?" He glanced over at her stricken face. "It seems that way."

She glanced down at her arm, which still stung from the thing that had scraped her flesh.

"They nearly got me."

But they hadn't. They hadn't. Because Leon Kennedy had pulled her aside.

Pulled her aside and...

It dawned in her mind almost too late. In horror, she turned to look at him.

Tiny, silver, it stuck like a tack from his upper chest.

"Leon..."

"What?"

"Oh my god..."

He glanced down and saw it. He'd completely forgotten. The entrance, the initial stick of pain had lost itself under the adrenaline.

But as if she'd said the magic words, his vision started to blur.

"Shit."

"Leon?"

Blurry. And blurry quickly became red. Blurry and red. The road was blurry and red. He tried to guide the car to the side of the road. Tried to say something, anything.

But it was too late.

Sydney screamed as Leon went into convulsions, body bowing and shaking like he was having seizure.

The car fish tailed, squealing and she grappled desperately for the wheel, trying to keep it on the road.

Blood splattered from his mouth, red and bright on the windshield. The steering column let out a shriek of protest from the rapid fire assault of his body smashing into it, into the seat, thrown back and forth like a desperate landed fish.

The car sput out, full circle, straight off the road and into the grass beyond. She tried, but he was shaking so badly, jerking and there was no control.

She barely had a moment to throw herself atop him, to try to hold onto him when metal screamed, when sparks exploded through the world as the car hit the crop of trees just beyond the road.

And she knew nothing but the waiting dark.

Author's note: For those of you who've played the game. You'll find up there I use the trademark line "Hold on, sweetheart." I felt I couldn't have the whole story without a little play on words. :P


	11. Panic and Dementia

Bwhaha. So after Rita got the wheels in my head spinning, (yes again) I decided she was absolutely right. Surely Leon had been set up with enough basic information to play the part well. Certainly, a man without the right knowledge of things wouldn't do very well in undercover work, now would he? So, I shall attempt to fill in those holes in this chapter. Rita, bless you, for always keeping a girl on her toes.

Gem- Thanks so much for the compliments. I try to keep things descriptive without crossing the very thin line into over done. I'm glad I'm doing it well.

Ginger Ninja- Cliffhangers are the fruit of the world, are they not? What's a good story without a few dirty twists? XD

PANIC AND DEMENTIA

There was the sound of something.

Dripping? It was wet. And the constant tick, tick, tick of the clock of life running out.

Was she dead? She moved a hand that was slick with something and touched it to her face. Pain. There was a lot of pain.

There wouldn't be any pain if she was dead.

The ticking wasn't a clock. It was the engine. The engine of the car that was smashed cleanly into the tree.

She rolled her head to the side and the panic leapt into her lungs.

Leon.

Leon.

LEON.

"Leon!" She moved, her body sore and hurting. He was smashed against her side, his face laying against her neck.

Her body was jammed between him and the steering wheel.

Her hands moved and gripped him, immediately feeling for a pulse. It was weak and thready but it was there.

"Leon...Leon.."His name was a mantra as she brushed the hair out of his face. His chin, his throat, was splattered with blood. In her head, she kept seeing his body, how it had shook and shivered and jerked like a thousand currents of electricity had been hot wired into his blood.

He was supposed to be pre-med. Surely if they'd made that his cover, they'd given him basic knowledge to back it up. She wanted to shake him awake and scream at him to ask him what to do.

Should she call someone? Should she get help! She was frantic, brushing at his face, making some sound that might have been a whine.

And somewhere in the distance, beyond the ticking of the engine, she heard the wet sound that meant something...somewhere was leaking.

The desperation increased, a thousand fold, she grabbed his shirt all but screaming in his face. Wake up, wake up, WAKE UP. But of course he wouldn't, couldn't. Didn't seizures affect the brain! Was it possible he was brain dead?

She reached over him, fighting to shove the door open.

She didn't have any choice. She was going to have to drag him out of the car and into the forest. They had to get away.

Because any minute...this car was going to blow.

>>>>>>>>

The paperwork was straight forward.

He was Luke Lawson, pre-med. A list of professors, of classes, some that ran parallel to Sydney's, some that didn't.

He'd never gone to college.

For a man like Leon Kennedy, a man raised in a home that was very loving, very supportive, and very centered on justice, there had never been any real question of what he would do with his life.

He would serve. He would protect.

And so he'd become a cop.

And he'd kicked his own ass in the Academy to be the best.

There were people who'd gone for discipline, to find some kind of structure. People who hadn't cared about justice, or the system, or protecting the innocent.

Leon had gone because to him, there was no greater gift then that of standing as the last line of defense between good and evil.

The job itself, had led him from the quiet, sheltered Boston Suburb he'd grown up in to the streets of Raccoon City.

He'd heard good things about Raccoon City. The up and coming metropolis, funded by the Umbrella Corporation. And, of course, the chance to work with the STARS. Who, given time, he might even have gone out for himself.

But Raccoon City had been a nightmare. Over run with monsters, with genetic mutations. His first day on the job had nearly cost him everything he believed in.

He'd gone from a starry eyed rookie, to a jaded expert in a little under two days.

Trekking through filth, putting bullets between the eyes of the undead, tended to take the shine out of anyone's day.

After Raccoon City, when Claire had left him without more then a word. When they'd come, and they'd taken Sherry, who'd left his arms screaming for him. When they'd given him a choice, or no choice, for a man like Leon. Who'd have stood in the fire and burned to save that little girl. He'd taken it.

And he'd become the very thing he thought he'd been born to fight.

A hired gun, a Merc, a killer. Assassin. Assassin. Assassin.

The ideals meant nothing after the first few kills.

Hunt them, look them in the eye, and pull the trigger.

He'd become, inside of the first six months, a machine.

They'd sent him to an island. And there, with six other men, they'd given them all the choice.

Kill or be killed.

So for nine days, they'd battled. One man to the next. With guns, and knives, and cunning.

He'd held one man under the water and watched him choke, watched the light die in his eyes.

And of course, finally, there had been only two.

The last stand.

Leon Kennedy...and Jack Krauser.

They'd faced off in the jungle. Two warriors. Krauser a seasoned military vet, an ex-army ranger, a sociopath. Leon no longer the naive rookie who'd driven into Raccoon City to save the day.

They'd bled, they'd starved, they'd beat at each other like they were nothing more then animals, fighting for control of the kingdom.

Krauser had nearly gutted him, leaving him on the jungle floor to live or die.

The infection, the days of dementia, the fine line he'd walked between insanity and death. It had given Leon a purpose, put the fire of rage into his heart.

And before the helicopter had come to take them to safety, to grant them the hell of working for a government that cared nothing for anyone but themselves, he'd drug his filthy knife over Krauser's face and left him scarred.

On his knees, bleeding with a hand to his face. And even then, even then, Krauser had laughed.

A few times over the next few years, they'd run into each other. Sparring on the rooftops of Paris, in the sweltering desert heat of Takla Makan, on the banks of Congo. They'd never defeated each other. Never fallen.

But a year ago, less perhaps, he'd heard the news that Jack Krauser had died. In a helicopter crash.

There had been no sadness, no grief. Only an emptiness that had come with unfulfilled destiny. In the back of his heart, Leon had always somehow believed that Krauser would die at his hand.

And thus the government had made him their new number one. A new mission every month. A new corpse returned to their hands.

A new stain on his soul that would somehow never be cleansed.

He might have tried to run. After Reinhold. It might have been the end for him.

But then fate had handed him Sydney Delacroix.

The first woman. The only woman. In thirty kills, never once had the target been female.

He'd struggled, still struggled even now, immersed inside his velvet mental prison.

Struggled with knowing, as an agent, his priorities were to complete the objective, eliminate the target. But as a man, everything had become blurred.

You didn't strike a woman. You opened her doors, held her hand and helped her over puddles, pulled her chair out at the table. You didn't stick a gun in her mouth and pull the trigger.

Especially when the taste of her lingered in your mouth like a drug.

And the scent of her, something soft, something smokey. Earthy and...

...acidic. Acidic? Noxious like gasoline, burning his nostrils.

What? No. That wasn't right. Wasn't it? Was it?

With something like a gasp, his eyes opened.

>>>>>>>>

She had him less then ten feet from the car, dragging him over ground laden with rocks, with sharp branches that caught on his clothes and in his hair as she moved.

Ten feet, when the car ignited, blue and orange flames that licked from beneath it like tongues, consuming the pungent chemical that dripped and ran in the dry grass below.

Sydney let out a shout, putting her back into it, cursing him for being so muscular, so heavy and herself not strong enough to shoulder his dead weight.

The fire ate at the grass like a starving thing, offering a bonfire to the night, ripe with the smell of melting steel and the wavering dance of firelight that shivered and swirled with smokey fingers toward the moon.

There was a pop, a hiss, a scream of metal and she knew this was as far as they'd get, as far as they'd go. Because the car was going to explode and take them with it to hell.

The sound of it was deafening, causing her to freeze, to immediately cover her ears with her hands and huddle.

Though it didn't last long.

The moment the first punch of explosion rocketed into her, she was being swept off her feet, being carried and forced to move. Legs pumping wildly as they ran away from the nearly sonic boom that chased behind them like a predator scenting prey.

He hit the line of trees with her, still moving, though his body felt like someone had stuffed it into a blender and hit frappe.

He was sore, aching, his chest on fire.

Whatever had been in that ampoule shooter hadn't been designed to kill him.

Him.

Not her. They'd been trying to take him out.

She hadn't been the target at all.

He had. But not death. No. If death had been the objective, he'd be so much meat on the ground.

What then? He'd gone into convulsions, his body naturally trying to reject whatever filth had pumped into his blood stream.

There wasn't time to fear whatever they'd done to him.

He had to get her away. Had to get her to safety.

And the safest place now was deeper into the forest.

She clutched at him, held to him as he ran. As nimbly as possible, dodging through the darkness, ducking branches and fallen logs as they moved, leaving the raging fire behind.

He'd knew two things. One was that the moment the crash was discovered, that it would be all over the news. Revealing their location to anyone tracking them.

The second was that they had a handful of hours to move. Maybe less. It was hard to know how long he'd been out.

They'd go deeper, find a river to cover their scent, in case whoever wanted him dead used hounds to track them.

Wait a few days for the trail to go cold before he took her back into civilization.

It was too late to worry about blowing his cover. The priority now was keeping her and himself alive long enough to find out who was after them.

If it was Umbrella, he was fucked. He could never go back. His assignment would be null. Along with his life.

If it was The Way, he was doubly fucked. Because it would mean they knew all about the investigation into their organization. And would stop at nothing to eliminate anyone who got in their way.

And if it was his own agency...

Either way, for Leon Kennedy, no where was safe. He was a refuge now. A dead man.

His days were numbered.

He was on borrowed time.

And he was going to use every minute, every resource, every piece of knowledge he'd built over the last few years to make sure she was safe.

After that, he'd do what he'd always known he would do before he died.

He'd get down on his knees...

...and pray for forgiveness.


End file.
